CSU and the Allen Theatre in the Plain Dealer

Kudos to Plain Dealer Theatre Critic Tony Brown for his trio of articles this weekend on the present, past and future of the Allen Theatre  and Cleveland State University's Dramatic Arts Program.

Cleveland will lose its third-largest theater -- PlayhouseSquare's 2,500-seat Allen -- in September.

The promised payoff, a year later: A three-venue, 1,000-seat complex for the flagship Cleveland Play House, which sold its outmoded facility, and forCleveland State University's undergraduate drama program.

All for a relative bargain -- under $30 million -- and preserving the 1921 Allen's architecture.

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CSU's theater program, which has grown from seven majors in 2003 to 70 today under the leadership of Michael Mauldin, would become one of the few undergraduate programs in the country affiliated with a professional theater and could have a shot at national prominence.

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Next door to the 81,500-square-foot Allen, in what is now a parking lot, Westlake has designed a 44,000-square-foot addition that would house two state-of-the-art theaters the likes of which Cleveland has never before seen.

The northernmost venue, called the "second stage" in the drawings, could be configured in just about any way a director wanted, up to 350 seats. It was inspired by Bloom's visit to the New Theatre, erected at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2002.

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The southern end of the Allen addition would be a similarly flexible but smaller 150-seat laboratory theater, which Bloom called "the workhorse of the complex," for student projects, children's theater, readings and events in the Play House's annual FusionFest.

The firm retained for the transformation, Westlake Reed Leskosky, is the team behind the original renovation of Playhouse Square Center. If you think CSU Summer Stages was amazing in the Factory Theatre, just wait until we move into a beautifully renovated, state-of-the-art downtown performance space.

More Reviews for CSU Summer Stages

Check out some more fantastic reviews for CSU Summer Stages.

From Tony Brown at the Pee Dee:

Now in its third and strongest season, the mixed professional-student company succeeds best at its two extremes, the heart-rending death-drama "The Shadow Box" and the farcical outer-space musical "Return to the Forbidden Planet."

...Quinton's masterfully balanced reincarnation of "The Shadow Box,"... the extremely well-disciplined nine-member cast...

Mauldin pulls out all the nutty stops for his scatterbrained production of the wafer-thin but highly entertaining "Return to the Forbidden Planet"... Several students turn in exemplary performances, too, including dashing dork Lew Wallace as the Capt. Kirk hero, brawny Lawrence Charles as the Caliban-esque Cookie, John Paul Soto as a sweet-voiced, roller-skating robot version of Ariel and fresh-faced Melissa Crum as Miranda.

Christine Howey at Rave & Pan:

With the playwright borrowing liberally from Shakespeare’s The Tempest (on which the original flick was based) and his other works, the dialogue in Return ranges from elegant to glibly idiotic. And since it’s all played for maximum fun and minimum reflection, it all seems appropriate

And don't forget about this weekend's performances!

• Thursday: The Shadow Box (Benefit performance for Hospice of the Western Reserve)
• Friday: Chekhov in Yalta
• Saturday and Sunday*: Return to the Forbidden Planet

All performances at 8pm except *2pm.
Box office: 216.687.2109

Plain Dealer's Tony Brown Sits Down with The Shadow Box

The Plain Dealer's Tony Brown joins us in rehearsal for The Shadow Box:

[Everett Quinton:] "Here's what is great. You found the secret of acting. You looked at your Dad, and you saw. You saw. You remember seeing it? Yeah? That's what acting is. Seeing. And remembering.

Don't forget, all three shows open this weekend! And here's a list of our benefit performances of The Shadow Box, in which each organization gets 1/2 of the box office take for the night:
Friday, July 17, 8 PM, Hospice of the Cleveland Clinic
Saturday, July 25, 8 PM, Hospice of the Visiting Nurses Association
Sunday, July 26, 2 PM, Hospice of the Cleveland Clinic
Thursday, July 30, 8 PM, Hospice of the Western Reserve
Friday, August 7, 8 PM, Malachi House

Plain Dealer: Better Late Then Never

Thanks, Tony. We still love you.

Tony Brown & Steven Litt on the CSU/CPH/PSC Move

Tony Brown and Steven Litt on the CSU Dramatic Arts/Play House/Playhouse Square move.




Here's a brief timeline of potential new homes for CSU Dramatic Arts:

• April 3, 2007: "A new plan, described publicly by university officials for the first time Monday, calls for moving the studio art and theater programs from a dark, dingy complex at the edge of campus to a dramatic new building on a high-visibility site on Euclid Avenue. Facilities for music and dance would also be part of the package." (This is, of course, pre-recession. A brand new $50 million complex may have been aiming a tad high.)

• July 2, 2008: "CSU would move its drama program, now in an old cotton factory on the campus, into the Allen. The university would manage the Allen as a downtown venue for a consortium of college theaters across the region to show off their work." (Notice in the article that Playhouse Square CEO Art Falco is a question-talker.)

• April 7, 2009: "In a blockbuster arts and real-estate deal, the Cleveland Play House will sell its longtime home in Midtown and move downtown to PlayhouseSquare's Allen Theatre in a joint venture with Cleveland State University's drama program." (CSU's in the leading paragraph of the article. Six weeks later, the follow-up article mentions CSU about half-way through. Tony Brown gives us a brief shout out 6:30 into the 7:30 video. I'm sensing a pattern...)